Germany goes to polls, Merkel poised for victory

24/09/2017

Photo credit: RT

Germans began voting in a national election on Sunday that is likely to see Chancellor Angela Merkel win a historic fourth term - and a far-right party's entry to parliament for the first time in more than half a century.

Ms Merkel's conservative bloc is on track to remain the largest group in parliament, opinion polls indicated.

But a fracturing of the political landscape may well make it harder for her to form a ruling coalition than previously.

With as many as a third of Germans undecided in the run-up to the election, Merkel and her main rival, centre-left challenger Martin Schulz of the Social Democrats, urged them on Saturday to get out and vote.

"We want to boost your motivation so that we can still reach many, many people," said the 63-year-old chancellor on Saturday, before heading to her constituency for a final round of campaigning.

In regional votes last year, Ms Merkel's conservatives suffered setbacks to the hard-right Alternative for Germany, which profited from resentment at her 2015 decision to leave German borders open to over 1 million migrants.

Visibly happier this year, Ms Merkel campaigned with renewed conviction; a resolve to re-tool the economy for the digital age, to head off future migrant crises, and to defend a Western order shaken by US President Donald Trump's election victory last November.